YouTube, YouTubers and You

The online video platform YouTube has captured the attention of billions all over the world, accelerated a thirst for fame among new generations, and altered the way we consume, distribute and monetize content. The documentary YouTube, YouTubers and You profiles several of the website's most successful users, and examines the impact it's had on the youth culture and content creation and consumption in general.

YouTube enjoys an unprecedented worldwide viewership. Collectively, these visitors watch well over 3 billion hours of content every month. These are the kinds of numbers that can result in great fame and fortune for many of the last platform's most recognizable stars. Celebrity used to be born from the silver screen or musical stage; today, all you need is a webcam and a passion.

The film introduces us to Kwebbelkop, a young Dutch entrepreneur who heralds an international subscriber base of over 7 million. He is one of YouTube's brightest stars, and his fame follows him wherever he travels around the globe. His shtick? He takes viewers inside his love of gaming and shares morsels from his daily life on his personal vlog.

Every year, he joins thousands of other creators, media influencers and celebrity hopefuls at VidCon, an online video convention based in southern California. Here, superstar YouTubers rub shoulders with potential investors, advertisers and other executives who are eager to capitalize on their success. Many others attend simply for an opportunity to glance their favorite online celebrity in the flesh, or to learn the skills they need to eventually join their ranks.

YouTube, YouTubers and You shows us the business side of the website; a world inhabited by algorithm specialists, brand marketers and talent managers. Without exception, if a company wishes to engage the eyeballs of an international audience, they have to play in the YouTube sandbox. The film also invests in the personal struggles and triumphs of the site's content makers. The forum is completely democratic, and invites participation from all ages and ethnicities. These creators are encouraged to share their personal lives and insights with the world. They are the product. Success or failure, particularly among the very young, can either inflate or crush their sense of self-worth.

12 Comments / User Reviews

This honestly makes me a little sick because people are becoming 'stars' by adopting a compulsive and obsessive daily life of creating content that let's be honest isn't exactly excellent or educational, and THE ONLY reason this system works is because advertising is behind all of it.

DustUp
I certainly agree that YT should not be judged solely on this kind of stuff because it is a vast universe of informative (above all) video content that lends itself to whatever one can think of and probably more of what can't be thought of.....In this area of YT however,it has seen better days.

Oh yes, I should mention "Open University" free energy demonstrations on YouTube. All bogus simplistic crap that cannot work. It is designed to get you to try it because it looks simple enough, then conclude that all of it is bogus. Bunch of weasels.

However, to cast derision upon YouTube for such misinformation and not those who posted it, is the problem... while failing to castigate and turn off the major media news for all the fake news and bald faced lies they promote as fact, shows the level of mentality and mindset of the socialist sheeple.

YouTube is what YOU make of it. One can get a second education, learn a specific task... like repairing a particular part on a particular vehicle, learn about newer inventions, learn about old inventions that have been rediscovered, watch other's experiments, watch travel logs, tips, and warnings, listen to a song and find out about the band, learn about the experience a person has had with a particular product or item, and much much more. OR you can dwell in the self centered realm. It is all up to you.

To criticize all of YouTube for the self centered attention whores is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I for one am appreciative for the many generous contributors to YouTube where I have learned so much more of value than I ever learned in college. Basically what college KEEPS or restricts you from learning because they busy you with "facts" which seems true the way they present it but in reality is not the whole story.

For example I watched a video from a professor regarding LENR, similar to room temperature nuclear reactions; explaining how the gate keepers of the scientific community (in his relm, Deans and heads of depts) do not want to hear about the results he achieved and his explanation of why the earlier Pons and Fleischmann experiment was not repeated well by others. He ran into some of the same problems of not all experiments working until developed better practices and materials. After his paper came out, his dept tried to shut him down and discredit him. They didn't want this information spread. As a chemistry professor he was going against physics. Being as old as he was he didn't really care about anything but the truth. He said you have these "laws of physics" and you have an experiment which disproves years of indoctrination and dogma which people have built their lives around. Who should I believe? People who want to kill the messenger or my own eyes and data which I have repeated many times and others have done the same?

These are the type of things you can find on YouTube that you will never find in the major media. Unfortunately YouTube does yank some video which it should not. Just not as much as the major media. Fortunately there are competitors to YouTube and people who will re-post some of those yanked videos under different titles and such, so they won't be yanked as quickly.

One thing you will learn in school in a scientific course of study, if nothing else, is that you cannot get more energy out of a system than you put into it. Therefore there cannot be such thing as perpetual motion. This may be true for a closed system but why teach it when there is NO such things as a closed system? Why indeed? Because such limited information leads one to conclude(as is the intention), like many "educated" people I know, that "it would be pointless to try to develop a device that produces more energy than you put into it, since it is impossible." "And anyone who attempts it is a fool." "And anyone who claims they have made such a device is either a liar or mistaken."

If you bring up the fact that somehow the planets circle the sun... I had one former friend tell me that is not perpetual motion, that is "centripetal force." Far too many people for some reason develop some world view which for some reason gives them comfort and don't like information, literally refuse information which disturbs that world view. They really should know better that they didn't learn all there is, in school. If the planets are indeed revolving around the sun, then they are in motion, and for all intents and purposes, it is perpetual motion, especially with respect to any device that could keep itself in motion like a self powered motor-generator such as you can find examples of on YouTube. A common one is the John Bedini school girl radiant energy device, which charges its own battery. There are several others. You can investigate what people are experimenting on inspired by Tesla or others. There are people with a lot of technical experience and know how. Several using high end equipment in a very professional manner. In my view these are very generous people giving insights into a little know world. They don't get enough hits to make it pay but they do it anyway because they like sharing information.

YouTube can be a rich source of information. Can be a source of misinformation. A place of entertainment or self absorption / self indulgence. The choice is yours. I am thankful for YouTube and was saddened when it was sold to big brother Gaagle.

How do Real independent news sites get started or get more followers or subscribers? YouTube.

Where could people have found out some very disturbing facts about Obama or Hillary? YouTube among others. Why people refuse to do their homework before voting? Because they are not logical or well reasoned, they are emotionally indoctrinated.

If people spent time doing their homework, some of it on YouTube, rather than wasting their time on Facebook and similar, they just might have a clue about the world they live. Rather than living in the matrix made for them by the few hands which own all the major media propaganda networks. It certainly isn't "the news".

That was very revealing for me... the power of instant gratification and how to achieve it. Little did I realise just how shallow youth is and how easily it allows itself to be exploited by its adults. But as one 9 y.o. said, "money makes the world go 'round". 7/10

You Tube has educated me on the RV lifestyle from a sociological and psychological point of view.
Because I plan to join this community in 2019 the Tube allows me the knowledge to select the best equipment for the desert and mountains or woods.
The Tube has also allowed me for 7 years to support and interact in the comments in the fight against Police brutality and the violation of rights we are suffering ___( IN THESE TIMES WERE LIVING IN ).
It was You Tube that lifted our cause to the newsrooms and educated the people and such that 50 % of the population weeks ago-----> in a survey said that 155 million people HATE/FEAR the Police. LOOK for " audits from High Desert Community" and many many more that entertain better than TV and educate the public on REAL Police attitudes that cause the 50% HATE FACTOR and growing to billions if they don't start serving and protecting instead of hunting and killing 1,000 a year and covering up for each other.

Hmm, seem like a lot of self centered attention seekers to me.What will they be like when they get older and no one wants to subscribe to their channel, and they get dperessed, and wonder why they have given away their youth to people they don't even know.,and they never develpoed meaningful friendships or social skills they should have learned when growing up? hmm,